fitness frivolity and culinary wizardry peppered with life musings, fried in adventure.

Brew it your way.

While I do love pulling recipes from Pinterest, there is nothing quite like someone handing you an actual recipe card, something you can muck up with stains and tears and bent parts while fiddling about in the kitchen.

That’s exactly what happened over Labor Day weekend when Boy and I went home and I got into a conversation with his dad’s girlfriend, Beth, who loves to bake. She bestowed upon me the way of the coffee cake, a recipe that actually serves as a pretty blank canvas.

Though the name might lead you to think otherwise about the flavoring (and in some cases, it’s true), coffee cake is actually a delicious pastry meant to be eaten with a cup o’ joe, not necessarily something that tastes like one.

Coffee cakes are sponge-like, often spiced with cinnamon and topped with fruit or nuts. Beth had blueberries and a general description of “nuts” on her recipe card, but since strawberries were the only thing living in my fridge at the time that’s what I opted for. I also only half-filled the cake with them, as Boy is not a fan of fruit in cake.

Next time, however, he can sit the cake out – because the strawberry portion was SO DAMN DELICIOUS.

STRAWBERRYCOFFEE CAKE

INGREDIENTS:

2/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup oil

1 egg

½ cup milk

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cup flour

½ cup butter

½ cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup fruit of your choice (strawberries in this case)

1 cup nuts of your choice

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, beat together sugar, oil and egg.

In a separate bowl, sift together baking powder, salt and flour. Alternately add this and milk to the egg mixture. Mix until well combined.

Add fruit and nuts. Pour mixture into round 9-inch pan.

For the topping, cut together brown sugar and butter. Now, I don’t know if there’s a technical way to do this, but I literally dumped both of these ingredients into a bowl, got out a butter knife, and just started slicing away until the butter chunks were tiny. When you’re done, sprinkle it on top of batter. IMPORTANT: Make sure there is room left between where cake ends and top of pan, as it will bubble as it bakes. No one wants to be privy to the smell of burning while they bake.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

As far as the plethora of combinations you have here, I get the feeling that blueberries, peaches and cherries would do well on the fruit end, while, walnuts, pecans and almonds could round out the nut end nicely. (That’s what she said?)

If anyone tries any other variation, please let me know – I’d love to know how it tastes!